Hadba whales sings the way humans speak

The English language is full of wonderful words, from “Numan Shaqan”, “Aurora” to “Zenith” and “Zodiac”.

But these are special appropriate words, which were slightly sprayed in writing and conversation. Words in the heavier and worldly rotation. They follow a noticeable statistical base, which is universal through human languages: the most common word, which is used in English is “The” almost twice like the second most common word (“from”, in English), three times like the third word The most common (“and”), and continue in this style.

Now, an international multidisciplinary team from scientists Find The complex songs of the Hadba whale, which can spread quickly from the population to another, follow the same rule, known as the ZIPF law.

Scientists are keen to note that the whale song is not a combat of human language. However, the results of its findings indicate that the complex and culturally granted vocal communication forms may participate in structural characteristics.

“We expect them to develop them to be easy to learn,” said Simon Kirby, an expert on language development at Edinburgh University and author of a new study. The results were published on Thursday in the magazine.

Dr. Kirby added: “We are thinking about the language because this culturally developed system must be transferred by its hosts, and those who are human beings.” “What satisfies me is to see that the same logic seems to be also likely to apply to the whale song.”

The ZIPF law, named after the linguist George Kingsley Zippef, is considered that in any specific language, the word frequency is inversely proportional to its rank.

There is still a big debate about the reason for this pattern and the meaning of this. But some research indicates that this type of deviant word distribution can make the language easier in learning.

If these word distributions evolve because they have helped learning, scientists may also expect to find similar patterns in culturally transmitted communication systems. “The whale song is a great place to look,” Infal Arnon, an expert in language acquisition at the Hebrew University and the author of the new study, said.

Male whales sings long and complex songs, which consist of a variety of sounds full of phrases and frequent topics. All male whales in a certain group of hump sings the same song, but that song develops over time – sometimes gradually and Sometimes everything is once.

“We have songs of songs, when a song from the neighboring residents is presented.” “So the type of song appears, then it takes it completely.”

Specifically, this is still mystery, and song researchers face a challenge that human language researchers cannot appreciate: they are not original speakers.

So the first challenge of scientists was the division of songs into meaningful units, and to determine where one word ended and another started. To do this, they used a quantitative approach inspired by human children. Research suggests that infants use the basic statistical thinking to define separate words in a continuous current of human speech; The clips that occur together are part of the same word.

The researchers have converted the songs of the Hamba whale, recorded over eight years in the water around the New Calidonia, into long sequences of basic vocal elements, including different types of screaming, takbeers, bile, ears, and relapse. After that, they identified “followers” of the voices that occurred together repeatedly – such as a short upward whistle followed by a larger – and may be almost similar to the word.

The researchers found that the frequency in which these following series were used followed the ZIPF law. In 2010, for example, Groan-Groan-Moan was the most common, as about twice the most common sequence appeared, which was a groan followed by three upward screams. The generally used serials were generally shorter than rare.

Dr. Garland said that human beings and whales are not closely related, and the song of whales does not bear the same semantic meaning that the human language does. But both communications systems move culturally, learn from others in society and pass through generations. She said: “Therefore, this really indicates the decisive role of learning and transportation in the emergence of the temple.”

Shen Jiro, a marine biologist who did not participate in the research, said he found a “elegant” and convincing study. He said that the results arouse the possibility that the linguistic laws derived from human communication studies may actually be broader biological principles.

“The fact that they may baptize if we know enough and study for a long time, this is really interesting,” said Dr. Jiro, a scientist at the University of Carlton. “Anytime we look deeper and listen to a longer period, we find an interesting complexity.”

In fact, the next step is to determine whether the phenomenon extends to other animals with similar communication systems.

“We must find these statistical characteristics in any system that transmits culturally to the chain signs,” said Dr. Arnon. “So we have bats to look at, we have Moroccan birds to look at, we have elephants, perhaps, to look at them.”

The results are compatible with Another sheet It was published this week, which was found that the audio produced by 11 species of dolphins and whales follow one of the rules of competence observed in the human language. Al -Qaeda, known as the Menzerath Law, you see that the more the sequence becomes, the shorter its individual components; Long sentences, for example, tend to have shorter words.

The study, published in Science Advances on Wednesday, documented this same style in a variety of cyttasian, including hump, which produces melodic songs; Sperm whales, What are the clicks; And the dollars, the bottle, which are famous for their whistles.

“Regardless of what is used for their voices, they seem to be all trying to communicate efficiently as possible,” said Masson Youngbud, a post -PhD researcher at Stone Brock University and the author of the study.

The pattern, which is also documented in non -human birds and monkeys, may have evolved as a way to reduce the costs of communication.

“It is extremely difficult to learn things like Bird Song and what Song”. “After that when you sing, it is very expensive. It can attract the attention of predators. For this reason, you expect communications systems to develop to reduce these costs wherever possible.”